Grinding It Out: Michigan State 60, Minnesota 53
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jan 13, 2010 11:22 PM CST
in Michigan State Spartans Basketball
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PrintSo much for the KenPom forecast of 74 possessions in this game. The Spartans and Gophers managed to squeeze just 60 possessions out of the 40 minutes allotted to them tonight. This was a contest between two teams that hunkered down and dared each other to find a way to score against solid half-court defense.
Somewhat surprisingly, Tubby Smith decided not to pressure MSU in the back court with any frequency, springing the full court press only a half dozen times or so during the game. He must have reached the conclusion that--as several commenters have pointed out in the last couple days--MSU's turnover issues generally crop up against aggressive man-to-man defense, not against full-court pressing. Minnesota did deploy the zone defense for a couple stretches, but MSU hit enough 3-point shots to keep them honest.
Given how successful the Gopher defense was both in breaking the rhythm of Kalin Lucas and Korie Lucious in setting up the MSU offense and in blocking or altering shots when MSU got the ball near the rhythm, getting to (exactly) 1.0 point per possession counts as a minor accomplishment for the Spartans. And they did it by, of all things, limiting their turnovers.
MSU turned the ball over just 10 times in the game, for a TO% of 16.7%--and 2 of the turnovers were shot clock violations, which are problematic but not the kind of brain-freeze-mistake turnovers that have been most flummoxing for this team. Combined with solid offensive rebounding and a superior level of offensive aggressiveness that resulted in 21 trips to the free throw line, MSU was able to overcome shooting just 40.0% from 2-point range and 27.8% from 3-point range.
Minnesota, meanwhile, didn't perform proficiently in any of the offensive areas outside of offensive rebounding. A handful of MSU defensive lapses led to some easy baskets for Damian Johnson (14 points, 6 rebounds, 4 blocks, 2 steals) and a couple open looks for Lawrence Westbrook (15 points on 3-5 three-point shooting). But they also completely shut down Blake Hoffarber by denying him open looks beyond the arc (4 points on 0-3 three-point shooting) and flustered Westbrook into some bad decisions (5 of Minnesota's 15 turnovers).
It'd have been nice for MSU to put together a run in the second half to win this game by a more comfortable margin (which they seemed to be just on the verge of at several points), but if I had to pick, I'd take a single-digit win in a defensive struggle over a close win in an offensive shoot-out at this point. We knew this team could score; now we're seeing that they can buckle down on defense, too.
Just a quartet of player bullets (official box score is here):
- Great game for Durrell Summers: 13 points on 9 FGA. Collected 8 rebounds in among (or, rather, above) the Gopher trees. And, FWIW, I thought the flagrant foul call on his fast break layup was entirely justified. Any foul from behind where the defender comes nowhere near the ball should be called as a flagrant foul.
- Odd night for Kalin Lucas: Perfect on 6 free throw attempts and 2-4 from 3-point range, but shot just 1-10 on 2-pointers. Al Nolen made life tough for him on the perimeter and Ralph Sampson III and Damian Johnson were waiting for him in the lane. Despite all that, he posted a 5-1 assist-turnover ratio, though.
- Give Chris Allen credit for not losing his confidence after coming out shooting blanks tonight. He was just 2-9 from the field, but the two baskets (a 3-pointer and a score in the lane) both came late when Minnesota had closed the lead to within striking distance. 5 assists for Allen; he's making good decisions with the ball, which is the key.
- Nice game for Derrick Nix, despite missing a couple easy looks near the basket (edit: and getting hit in the jaw by a Colton Iverson elbow hard enough to cause him to black out for a few seconds - HT: wifeofaspartan). 6 rebounds in 10 minutes of play and some solid defense on Sampson. And he made another free throw! Free throw percentage is all the way up to
14.7%16.7%.
As LVS mentioned in the game thread, I had the opportunity to sit down close to the action again tonight. Major impression: Draymond Green is THE leader of this team. He carries himself with such a great combination of poise and enthusiasm (flashing a big smile at the fans in our section as he entered the game in the second half). He directs traffic on the court (at one point getting Korie Lucious to back the ball out and settle down when Lucious was looking to force something into traffic). And he's the one guy Tom Izzo never seems to express any frustration with (ot at least didn't tonight). For as productive as Green has been statistically this season, he heaps a big scoop of intangibles on top of that.
More concretely: Green is a one-man defensive stop. He posted 4 blocks and 3 steals tonight. (Weird stat: MSU had as many blocked shots as Minnesota did tonight: 6.) One each of those defensive disruptions came in consecutive possessions in the final 90 seconds of the game to seal the deal for MSU.
Draymond Green is less than 50% of the way into his Spartan career. And what's left to say about him at this point? Eventually, we'll have to resort to composing epic poems and erecting statues of him to express our praise.
Final Green note: I noticed that he and Tubby Smith had a particularly warm exchange during the postgame handshakes. Thank goodness the University of Kentucky saw fit to force Smith out as their coach. If not for that, it'd be Wildcat bloggers paying him homage for his on-court brilliance.
Next up: A Saturday afternoon (3:30) CBS-broadcast home game vs. the Fighting Illini, with the outright Big Ten lead on the line.
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Some Observations
A gritty performance tonight. Minnesota made it hard to find many easy shots. Allen had a couple of good looks, but they just didn’t go down.
There is so much that I appreciate about Green’s game – can’t wait til he adds the outside shot to his arsenal in the coming years- but the biggest praise I can heap is that he makes his teammates better. He gets them involved, he covers for their mistakes, he ignites an energy and enthusiasm, and he holds them accountable. I agree that he is the leader.
Offensively, I think Lucas is trying too hard and making some questionable decisions. We will be better when he gets others more involved instead of forcing the action. I don’t know if he is trying to show that he is NBA ready, which I don’t believe he is, but he would do himself a favor by slowing himself down a bit.
Great to come out on top against another quality opponent.
Agreed
I think Allen spent the most time on Hoffarber, although there’s obviously a lot of switching.
Re: Morgan. At different times, he was guarding both Westbrook and Sampson. We probably don’t give him enough credit for being as versatile as he is on defense, without picking up as many fouls as he used to.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jan 14, 2010 7:32 AM CST up reply actions
"without picking up as many fouls as he used to"
Emphasis on that part. The entire team is picking up on defense as league play continues. I’m liking what I see.
It wasn't called a flagrant foul
And he took a swipe at the ball.
Either way: Flagrant/intentional
There’s apparently no distinction at the NCAA level.
Someone will need to find video, but I watched the replay last night and it looked like he got all body to me. Summers had elevated too high at that point. That gets called pretty consistently.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jan 14, 2010 7:38 AM CST up reply actions
Go to the 25-second mark. Cobbs swipes at the ball, but doesn’t get any of it, making contact only with Summers’ lower body.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jan 14, 2010 7:52 AM CST up reply actions
I think it was a flagrant
Even if it wasn’t Iverson should have gotten something for elbowing Nix.
Light a man a fire, he'll stay warm for a day.
Light a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Fouling a player from behind on a breakaway constitutes “excessive contact” in my book. The word “intentional” does not capture the essence of the rule.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jan 14, 2010 8:54 AM CST up reply actions
Straight to the real source
Definition of “Intentional personal foul”on Page 72:
Pushing or holding a player from behind to prevent a score;
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jan 14, 2010 9:03 AM CST up reply actions
Consistency
Problem is officials don’t consistently call that an intentional foul. Roles reversed, I’d been upset at the call. I know it is a difficult job, but officiating needs to be consistent.
exactly
And there are about 5 plays per game per team that could be all intentional that aren’t. You got some home cooking, just acknowledge that. It didn’t decide the game, but it wasn’t a good call.
And he played the ball, which you admitted, so that definition is meaningless since your forgot the first part of the definition…intentionally.
Guidelines for calling the intentional personal foul are:
a. Any personal foul that is not a legitimate attempt to directly play the ball
or a player is an intentional personal foul
by From The Barn on Jan 14, 2010 9:41 AM CST up reply actions
I'll buy the inconsistency argument
But I don’t think the refs can ever determine what a defender “intended.” The decision should be made based on whether the defender put the offensive player in danger by fouling when a play on the ball was no longer possible.
Anyway, a well-fought battle on both ends. Minnesota seems like it’s in pretty good position now, with the road games against both Purdue and MSU out of the way.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jan 14, 2010 10:18 AM CST up reply actions
Elbow
Homecooking? Um, how long have you been watching Big Ten basketball? Happens every game. Wasn’t there a study on this exact concept?
I believe MSU got the benefit on the intentional foul call. Another area of (in)consistency is with ejections. How does Iverson/Nix elbow differ from the Manny/Kramer elbow from last year’s Purdue/Michigan game? Not saying it did or did not deserve an ejection, but goes back to the real problem: consistency in officiating. Call it the same throughout the game. And call it the same game-by-game.
Foul from behind on a breakaway = intentional
That’s as close to automatic as you can get, especially when he’s “swiping at the ball” while Summers already has it up near the rim and especially when the rules committee has made it a point of emphasis this year.
Not a flagrant (although Iverson’s was pretty close; last year elbows were pretty consistently called flagrant), but definitely an intentional foul. (The name is misleading, since there are obviously intentional fouls that aren’t called as such – a better description might be “attempting to deny a clear scoring opportunity without making a legitimate play on the ball”, akin to the rules for when a penalty shot should be awarded in hockey.)
+1
First of all, you most definitely CAN commit an intentional foul while “playing the ball”. From the rule book: “It is an intentional foul when, WHILE PLAYING THE BALL, a player causes excessive contact with an opponent.”. (Emphasis added.). Furthermore, the rules state that “When a dribbler, without contact, passes an opponent sufficiently to have head and shoulders beyond the front of the opponents torso, the greater responsibility for subsequent contact shall be that of the opponent.”
by Con-T on Jan 15, 2010 10:13 AM CST via mobile up reply actions
fouls
I agree that the ref’s lack of consistency is the big problem. I have no doubt that Iverson’s shot was intentional. On the replay, I thought it was pretty clear that he is reacting to Nix fouling him. He is swinging the elbow, perhaps not to hurt Nix, but in reaction to NIx’s repeated swipes at the ball and to gain space. Away from the Bres, Nix gets called for a foul, and there is no Iverson elbow.
Usually, after that kind of action, the refs call it very tight, but if anything they let even more go. Did MSU get some home cooking. Sure. Hey, this is the Big Ten in January. Last night, the refs basically only called about one in three fouls. The ones they choose to call clearly shape the game. On the other hand, when MSU plays Minnesota, I feel like we’ re seeing two very similar styles and approaches, but with MSU just that much more talented up and down the roster. Minnesota is physical by design, to slow down the spartans — to me, it just makes sense they got called for more fouls. In fact, I think it too bad, how often the refs allow the systematic fouling.
On the Summers break away, to me what makes it intentional, is that the Minnesota guy goes at Summers with both arms. From the back with both arms so close to the basket, as summers is elevating, there is virtually no chance of a sound defensive play. I will grant you, though, that here too, the refs tend to be inconsistent, and I suspect that call does net get made more than half the time.
There is a distinction
Flagrant results in an automatic ejection; intentional just counts toward fouling out. But both are two free throws and the ball (and reading through the rules, it appears that this doesn’t change if the shot is made, which means we should have gotten two FTs instead of one; this is consistent with what I remember from someone grabbing Paul Davis’s ankle at Wisconsin several years back, as he made the layup and got two shots and the ball).
They did end up giving Summers the 2nd free throw
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jan 14, 2010 9:11 PM CST up reply actions
I must just not have seen it, then
I know they went to commercial after the foul, saw one free throw, and then saw us inbound.
Yeah, check the official box score at the 3:43 mark in the first half. Summers missed the first FT and made the second.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jan 15, 2010 8:56 AM CST up reply actions
disco Hightower-MUST SEE!
go the the open game thread for vert_et_blanc video of Ed Hightower’s probable way
of calling the intentional foul. This is priceless! great to laugh first thing in the morning.
Thanks for the info on the huddle and Green getting KLIF2 to pull the ball out and start over.
You all do a great job – I enjoy the analysis and all the comments. I can hardly go to mlive because of the flamers and never really got the red cedar message board well.
One thing really struck me on the replay of Iverson’s elbow to Nix’s jaw. Nix weighes 280#! ! !
I can’t imagine the force it took to drop him to the ground. LSJ, though, had a quote this morning where Nix said he blacked out so maybe he dropped because of the pain and his reaction. IF the elbow had hit his nose, i would think he would have a broken nose.
For a while they were really pushing mouthguards as a means of helping to prevent concussions. I saw Nix’s mouthguard in the second half and thought (such a mom) “wow, at least he wears a mouthguard” then also same LSJ article, he said had the mouthguard but wasn’t wearing it. Like a seatbelt, only helps if it is on.
Good sign he came back and seemed fine in the second half. You really have to wonder if the elbow had caught him higher up in his temple or skull if it would have caused a closed head injury.
Oh, BS.
You complained before about KJ’s alleged selective cutting and pasting, so let’s include the full section from the article here:
After the game, Nix and teammate Kalin Lucas called Iverson’s foul a "cheap shot."
"When I got hit, I blacked out for about four seconds," Nix said. "Then I got up. After about a few more seconds, I was back to (normal)."
After the initial pain subsided, Nix said he stayed on the floor as long as he could so his team could get a free timeout.
Nix laid on the floor for about 15 seconds before he walked to the bench and was evaluated by team trainer Tom Mackowiak .
"I just laid there to get my teammates some rest," Nix said. "I was kinda faking a little bit."
The "faking" came only after four seconds of BLACKING OUT as a result of Iverson’s elbow to the face. Not having Iverson thrown out (on a play that looked remarkably similar to Manny Harris’s ejection last year) was a hell of a lot luckier than MSU getting the intentional foul call you won’t stop whining about.
PP-TPW.
The Only Colors
Allen
Hate to see a player get so WIDE open that he stops and thinks about the shot instead of just setting, staying in rhythm, and letting it go. Allen did that twice in a row and turned amazing looks into misses! Oh well, I still think he’s MSU’s most improved player in many ways but those misses were unfortunate. Can’t pysche yourself out of an easy shot.
I thought the exact same thing. Had he needed to shoot in rhythm, he probably would’ve nailed em both. Coming from a long-time Allen critic, he is clearly most improved. Even when his shot isn’t on, his defense is no longer a liability.
He's also...
…improved as a slasher. That allows him not to disappear when his three-pointer isn’t falling. My wife and I were talking about that during the game, that we used to cringe when Allen did anything with the ball, but catch and shoot, but he’s improved in ball-handling.
by witless chum on Jan 15, 2010 7:46 AM CST up reply actions
I'm absolutely floored that we won the turnover battle
Had you asked before the game which team would turn it over on approximately 25% of possessions, I would have hands down said us. Not that we have any particular trouble handling the press, but we do have a propensity to turn it over, and the problems seemed to be getting worse over the past 3 games. For a while it looked like we were going to definitively lose the battle of the boards, but we came back strong in the second half.
I agree that Morgan doesn’t get enough credit for his versatility on D – he can handle both wings/small forwards and power forwards pretty easily. I thought Lucas had something of an off night but he shot well from the perimeter and had a sterling assist to turnover ratio, which is encouraging. His assist to turnover ratio has been dipping over the past several games to close to parity. It’s OK that he looks to score but we really do need him to run the offense.
Summers had a fantastic game – lets hope this is his turnaround point as he has been in an offensive funk for several weeks.
All in all, the most encouraging thing is that our defense looks very much improved since the conference season began. That was an area where we needed to improve and we have. I wish we could push the pace a little more. Reports of the Big Ten’s acceleration in tempo seem to be premature, at least judging by our games so far. At least we know we can win ugly.
winning ugly
Yes, MSU’s ability to win ugly (in home games) is the clear lesson from these early games. The more the game went on last night, the more it seemed Minnesota was just giving away the outside shot, daring MSU to shoot from out there. If any of the MSU shooters had been hot, the game would have been over a lot earlier. Minnesota packing it in, basically took away MSU’s inside game.
MSU looks much improved from a month ago
Ball movement is better, they’re taking care of the ball. I can’t quantify this, but they look quicker to me. Everyone seems to be on fresh legs and seems to have more energy on the court.
Waiting for April.
Home Cooking?
Yes, I would like to order an elbow sandwich.
PPTPW – Deal with it.
I like the intensity and how they share the load: Durrell, Allen, Dancing Bear, and Kalin.
And now, our respected rival – The Illini!
A couple of things
First, our loss to UNC is looking worse and worse as Roy’s Boys continue on what is beginning to look like a death spiral down to a #10 seed in the NCAA’s. They seem unable to win on the road against even semi-quality opposition. I can see Texas in Dallas and Clemson at Clemson, but Coastal Carolina?
Second, our defense in beginning to remind me of the 1988-1990 era and 2004 Detroit PIstons. Not because of technique, because I have only seen a couple of our games on the tube, but because of the effect, i.e. the 7 point blowout. Once we are seven points up,the game is over because no matter how hard the other team tries they aren’t going to score on 3 straight possessions to take the lead and if they do they’ll be so gassed by the effort that they will surrender the lead immediately.
My bad
College of Charleston, not Coastal Carolina. Does it matter in the grand scheme?
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